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Entity Framework Basics

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Welcome to Entity Framework Basics

2:37 with James Churchill

Let's start with a look at how databases help us create applications that are not only easier to develop, but more powerful and useful to our users. We'll also review what you'll learn in this course.

Prerequisites

To get the most from this course, you should feel comfortable with C# and Visual Studio. For more information about those topics, check out these Treehouse courses and workshops:

While it's not absolutely required, you'll also find it helpful to know something about relational databases and the SQL language. Check out this Treehouse course:

This course will work with a data model that is borrowed from the project that is developed as part of the ASP.NET MVC Basics course. For more information see:

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    [MUSIC] 0:00
    Hi, my name is James and I'm a developer. 0:04
    Data is literally everywhere, from massive social media services like Facebook or 0:07
    Twitter that allow us to post status updates and 0:12
    see what our friends are up to. 0:15
    To a desktop application that a small business uses to track its inventory and 0:17
    customer orders. 0:22
    Virtually, every website or 0:23
    application uses data including the websites or applications that we develop. 0:25
    In earlier Treehouse isp.net courses, 0:32
    we developed a website that displayed information about comic books, and 0:34
    a web app that allows us to track our fitness activities. 0:38
    Both of these applications used in memory data stores, 0:42
    which is not an ideal solution for persisting data. 0:46
    Statically storing data in code is rigid and time consuming. 0:49
    Even worse, as we saw when developing the Fitness Frog web app, 0:54
    data changes are lost in between successive application starts. 0:57
    Databases give us an efficient way to create, read, update, and delete data. 1:02
    Persisting data in a database allows data to survive across application starts. 1:08
    Data even survives across user sessions, so 1:14
    that users can use our applications to create, update, or delete data on one day. 1:18
    And return on another day and still see the changes that they had previously made. 1:24
    Microsoft's entity framework allows us to leverage the power of databases within our 1:30
    own applications by writing C# code. 1:34
    In this course, 1:38
    we'll use Entity Framework's Code First Workflow to define our model. 1:39
    We'll create entity classes that define relationships between those entities. 1:43
    We'll also write queries using LINQ. 1:48
    And perform CRUD operations using the database context. 1:50
    By the end of this course, 1:54
    you'll have a solid understanding of the basics of entity framework. 1:55
    As we learn about entity framework, we'll create an updated data model for 2:00
    the comic book gallery project that we created in an earlier Treehouse course. 2:03
    If you're unfamiliar with the comic book gallery project, 2:08
    see the teacher's notes for more information. 2:11
    in the final section of this course, we'll use entity framework to develop the data 2:14
    access code for a console application that leverages our comic book's data model. 2:18
    The completed comic book library manager console application 2:23
    will allow users to retrieve and persist comic book data using a database. 2:27
    Are you ready to start accessing data using entity framework? 2:32
    Let's get started. 2:36

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